Revisiting: Frankenweenie (1984) (4 stars)

It’s hard to know what Disney were thinking when they took on Tim Burton in 1979. Freshly graduated from CalArts (alongside future Pixar bods John Lasseter and Brad Bird, as well as The Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick), Burton had already shown a flair for the macabre with his mad scientist cartoon Stalk of the Celery Monster. This was followed in 1982 by stop motion short Vincent, in which a young boy dreams of becoming a maniacal villain in the Vincent Price mould. So the studio shouldn’t really have been surprised when, two years later, Burton delivered the thirty-minute live action short Frankenweenie. Read story